Posts Tagged ‘olive oil’

“This is our year, brother,” Bruno di Fabio said as I woke him up at 6 a.m. this morning. Bruno says this every year we travel over here to compete at the World Pizza Championships, but it never gets old.

The view from Holiday House Gilda and my bedroom window. Niiiiiiice!

Today is the second day in this town which, for all intents and purposes, is truly paradise. I’m standing on the balcony of the guest house, high on a cliff looking down on our own secluded beach.

The view of Positano from our secluded, private beach.

The fishing boats are coming in from their last stations, where I saw them last night. Judging by the way they positioned their boat lights, they must have been fishing for the squid and/or octopus on every menu here. The birds are chirping like crazy–the staccato almost has the same cadence as the italian marketplace we visited in Sorrento yesterday. Typing on my Blackberry is getting annoying so I will stop soon (I have big thumbs) but want to thank Mike for commenting that I should be sending some posts from here. Right on, Mike.

Gilda and Giuseppe trying to choke a smile after we trashed their kitchen making pizza dough.

Yesterday, our hosts, Gilda and her husband Giuseppe, helped me prepare ingredients for my entry in the Pizza al Teglia portion of the championships. I’m making a Pizza al Metro. I will fill my long pizza pan with a 32 ounces of my pre-fermented dough, and then brush it with oil made from extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, fresh anchovy and lemon that grew outside my room here. Yesterday, Giuseppe went to the docks and obtained fresh, fat anchovies and Gilda showed me how to gut, debone and cure the fish in wine, vinegar, salt and massive amounts of sweet lemon. This morning we will dry the anchovies, dump the liquid, add salt, extra virgin olive oil, chopped garlic and pepperoncini (red pepper flakes).

During the contest I will oil the proofed dough, add Parmaggina, mozzarella, sweet Amalfi Coast cherry tomatoes and salted capers that Gilda grew here. After cooking it, I will place blanched and split local asparagus with the alici marinata (marinated anchovies) around the stalks, and dust the top with roasted almonds. This pizza will be fresh, sustainable and awesome to behold if I don’t screw it up.

I am a lucky guy to be here, but would give it all away in a heartbeat for a hug from my beautiful wife and kids. I love you guys!

The green rockets of spring are taking to the air. Finally, we can get our noses out of the misted produce isles and the never-ending harvest of mediocre corporate veggies. Here in southeast Ohio, asparagus is the first hint of what is to come: morel mushrooms, ramps, strawberries, rhubarb, blueberries, kholrabi, garlic tops, arugula, mustard greens and kale, until the baby zucchini blossoms herald the full frontal assault of summer.

When I visited the Ervin Hershberger farm in Chesterhill Ohio, Ervin’s wife Rachael shoved a one-year old in my arms and we stumbled out back to the asparagus field. “I don’t know if there’s…oh my, we DO have alot of asparagus,” she said as I looked at the green stalks peeking their delicious heads up from the field. Short and fat ones grew alongside long skinny ones just waiting for me to grab and twist before dropping them into the aspargus bucket. As my delight in the first bounty of spring heightened, I kept reminding myself, “Don’t drop baby John…don’t drop baby John…don’t…”

The best hint on buying asparagus is to never buy asparagus that has been cut with a knife. Asparagus has a fabulous way of telling you when you’ve reached the spot where the stalk turns to wood. Grab the stalk and twist – it breaks right at that inedible point.

While waiting tables in Chicago years ago, my friend Chrisensio told me that, while new to this country, he tried every job as a migrant worker. “The two jobs I would rather die than go back to are cutting asparagus and planting pine trees in a clear-cut forest.” The field managers walked among the pickers, telling them to cut under the earth to get as much poundage as possible. Sounds like a real back-breaking job. It also gave me a hint of how are foodstuffs are managed by the large companies.

I decided to make a pizza with asparagus using Serrano ham from Spain. I will pair this magnificent combination with Manchego cheese (Spanish cheddar from the La Mancia region of Spain), sweet San Marzano tomatoes,and fresh mozzarella.

Jamon Serrano means “Mountain ham” and can best be described as having a taste like Italian prosciutto crudo or the French Jambon Bayonne. This ham is dry cured with salt and is only made from the “Landrace” breed of pig from the Sierra mountains in Spain. The taste, compared to the Prosciutto crudo, is more of an upfront salty-pork flavor and noticably lacking in the last Parmesan-umami taste at the back of the throat that prosciutto exhibits. I like this ham on pizza because of the amount of fat in each slice. I tear the fatty pieces to cook in the oven (which creates some bodacious cracklings), while saving the crudo for topping the warm pizza.

I love fresh raw asparagus on pizza as much as the next guy but with this recipe, I take off the outer skin and “shock” the asparagus. This par-cooks the aspargus for 30 seconds and then fast-cools it, setting the chlorophyl or green color.

Make two 7 ounce dough balls. Freeze one for later or double this recipe for 2 pies.

Preheat an upturned cookie sheet on the middle rack of your oven set at 475 degrees.

Put a 3-quart pan filled halfway with water on a high burner to boil. Add a teaspoon of salt to the water.

Using a peeler, lay the asparagus down on cutting board and run the peeler down along the stalk, taking as little of the skin of as possible. Roll the stalk and peel the skin around the whole stalk. Do not run the peeler twice in the same spot or you will take the meat off and end up with nothing.

Fill a large bowl with water and add 4 to 6 ice cubes.

Place asparagus in the boiling water and count to 30 seconds. Do not walk away. Grab the asparagus with tongs and transfer to the ice bath.

Take the asparagus out of the water and cut each stalk in half lengthwise.

Cut the fatty portion off each slice of Serrano ham. Wrap the non fatty portion around each half-stalk of asparagus.

Open the can of tomatoes and place in a colander to drain. Tear the best 3 tomatoes into filets. Place on a plate. (For true San Marzano tomatoes, note the D.O.P. or Denominazione D’Origine Protetta on the side of the can, the 3 seals on the left side of the can).

To Assemble the Pizza:

Form the pizza dough according to the easy pizza dough recipe. Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper.

1. 2. 3. 4.

1. Pour the extra virgin olive oil onto the dough.

2., 3. Scatter the Manchego on the dough, followed by the fatty ham and the tomato filets.

4. Place the fresh mozzarella balls on top.

Place the pizza with the parchment on the preheated cookie sheet and close the oven. This pizza should cook in 10 to 12 minutes. Check for even cooking after 5 minutes and turn accordingly. The final pizza should be golden brown and more brown on the bottom.

Pull from oven and place aspargus on the pizza in spokes. You may have to trim the asparagus. Place one half mozarrella ball in the middle of the spoke. Serve immediately. Don’t cut this baby until you get a ‘wow factor’ response from your family or hungry guests.